notes

So you want a new kitchen. You have options: you can build one from scratch using materials from the DIY suppliers, get a local craftsman to build you one, ask a kitchens-and-bathrooms specialist to configure one, or you can go to your nearest Ikea store, fill your hatchback with  cardboard boxes of bits and build your own. In our last house I built our first kitchen from pine. After about twenty years we got a cabinet maker to build one from birch ply. In our new house we started down the third route and decided it wasn't working for us so took the last option. Turns out the Ikea option is a) cheapest and b) best. Now this post is not an advert for Ikea nor is it about kitchens. It's about housing. The Ikea kitchen is serving as a kind of metaphor. Here's how.... Park Hill flats were built in Sheffield when I was about 15 years old and beginning to think about architecture as a career path. Quite simply one of the world's best housing schemes, it is has in recent years...